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{ newt scamander }

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WHO: Tina Goldstein and you!
WHAT: A demiguise has decided to go exploring
WHEN: Early Bloomingtide
WHERE: the Gallows
NOTES: Please have fun with it! The demiguise won't do anything harmful other than maybe spooking someone when she opens a door while invisible. And should she not run from you she probably waits expectantly... for something? someone?

"Where in the name of Deliverance Dane..."

Of all the things Tina Goldstein expected to be doing today hunting down a demiguise was not one of them. Since their arrival in Kirkwall and subsequently the Gallows she'd kept her head down: Read a few books in the library, tried to learn something of the weaponry (and failed), and did whatever task that the Scouting division had given her with very little talk to other people.

Despite the fact it had been weeks she still felt very little reason to trust the circumstances that the Inquistion took rifters in under. It wasn't strictly out of kindness and she wasn't going to convince herself that they weren't just there to be under lock-and-key and used when necessary. Not with the way the natives of Kirkwall saw them or the way they thought of magic. She was used to hiding her magic, but Mercy Lewis as if magic was the least of their problems around here--

Her disgruntlements she keeps largely to herself, however, and doesn't speak of them even to Newt. She rarely talked to anyone freely, be they rifter or native, and that wasn't completely unusual of her-- But she knew her sister would frown and insist she need to at least try. Which was maybe why she was regretting naming Malcha the demiguise after her. Because she was forcing her to do the talking she really didn't want to do right now.

It was like she was playing hide-and-seek and the one who was hiding was both quick and even better at hiding than anyone else.

The residents of the Gallows might find that a creature figures out how to open their door and enters-- Or maybe it opens and closes seemingly on its own. If you catch sight of the creature it might stare unblinkingly at you as if waiting for your response. If you don't move it'll offer you whatever it can find on the ground nearby, a token of peace. Or if you come towards it the creature might simply disappear and dart away.

Someone is on its tail, however, and maybe she arrives just before the creature does or maybe after it's shown up and has settled into sitting nearby. Regardless, she always appears a little annoyed and out of breath when she asks:

"Sorry. Haven't seen an animal come by have you? White fur, but monkeyish." A beat and she adds in. "No doors opening on their own?"

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Newt turns from where he stands, food in one hand as he prepares to go check in on and feed the Fade-touched moths he'd discovered the other month. His expression brightens at the sight of Tina, but then he registers what it is she's actually said (after, perhaps, staring her lovely cheeks a second too long) and straightens.

"Not recently," he answers, glancing up and down the street that they currently find themselves on. Merlin, he only hopes Malcha isn't in Hightown; that could cause serious problems, not the least for the Demiguise.

"When did she escape?" He shifts the food to better hold it, making ready to help accompany Tina on her search.

Of course, it was Newt that she had to run into while looking for the creature. The irony wasn't lost on her. She has the grace to look ready for a scolding but pressed her hands to her hips all the same.

"Long enough," the woman grumbled in her answer, not looking the man in the eye. If something happened to the creature it would be her fault.

"She'd been anxious to get out all morning." At least she thought she had been, given the number of times Tina had to tell her no. It only took a brief look away for the creature to make her escape. Which was odd given how it didn't seem to like leaving her sie.

Tina looks as though she expects Newt to yell at her. Perhaps he might have, back when they had first met and he still bore a slight grudge against her for arresting him, no matter how right she was to do so to begin with. But she also stands with her hands on her hips, as though she might yell at him, too. It's very probably inappropriate to be thinking so but Newt can't help himself: it's a delightful image, and one he thinks he'll treasure for quite some time.

"Well, I can't blame her for that," he says. "Come on. We'll go look for her. I'm sure she can't have gotten far."

There's no point in worrying, at least, out loud. That will only slow their search down. Internally, however, Newt is very much trying to not think about the possibilities of what might happen if Malcha encounters some of the...less friendly of Thedas' local animal population.

Unfortunately for the pair of them worrying is what she was good at. As much as she hastened to call Malcha a pet-- she wasn't, not to her-- she'd never had any sort of animal in her care before. Well, no, once with her grandfather there were owls but he was always there.

"Sorry," Tina mumbled tersely, "if she gets into any trouble it's my fault." What she means to say if she gets hurt it's her fault. Newt had taken to trusting her with a creature and here she was having lost it-- Invisible or otherwise. It reminded her of New York, in a twisted way, but it was different.

Newt wasn't going to trust her anymore if a creature wound up injured or worse here.

"Tina, don't blame yourself," Newt says, walking swiftly and precisely, letting his gaze flicker from corner to corner as he tries to gauge where Malcha could have gotten to. "I'm sure she'll be fine. Everyone needs to see the world once and awhile."

Even if the world is terrible and filled with various dangers. Actually, especially then.

He pauses a moment to turn and look at her. "I don't blame you, Tina," he tells her. "I won't."

If it were anyone else, he would have lost patience already. It says something about how much trust he has placed in Tina that he says so.

Tina doesn't answer immediately. Her head shakes, lips drawn into a bow, fingers shoved into her pocket (one fiddling with the end of her wand). It might not be clear that she disagreed with him, but she did. Malcha was her responsibility to protect-- she'd arrived with her-- of course she would blame herself if anything happened to the creature.

How could she not?

"Talking about it isn't gonna find her," the woman said finally, brushing past Newt to look for the demiguise-- The problem here being that she doesn't know where to begin to look. Whenever she gets anywhere close to the creature it seems to vanish. As it it was playing a game. Maybe that's what she was doing, Tina thought with a frustrated sound.

"Do demiguises like hide and seek?"

"Oh," Alistair says, looking up from a map and assortment of papers he's strewn across one of three desks crammed into the Wardens' borrowed office. "I assumed that was the—the haunting, you know."

He waves a hand to indicate their surroundings, generally, which are no longer as haunted as they used to be, where haunted is a perhaps inaccurate but blessedly concise stand-in for infested with red lyrium and spirits mimicking traumatic events of the past. It's been taken care of. Mostly. But it was nonetheless his first assumption when the door open and shut for no apparent reason, and not unusual enough for him to stop working and sound alarms.

While Alistair smiles at her, he's moving the papers over the map. It's not subtle, but he isn't really trying. Wardens have their secrets. If she doesn't know that, she'll have to learn it sooner or later. Map covered, he stands up and looks around the room, which seems empty.

"You have a monkey that's a mage?"

The haunting the man says and she can't help but frown. Tina doesn't pay any mind to the map he was covering up, dark eyes trained instead for any movement that might be the demiguise in question. She's too used to confidental paperwork to be too miffed, but then she was usually in a position to see it.

"She's a demiguise," She answered, "and she can only go invisible." The creature isn't a mage, she means to say, knowing their apparent feelings on magecraft around here. Frown further rooting itself on her features she paused before hastening to add:

"She's not dangerous, either. A nasty nip if she feels endangered, maybe," Tina's careful to address, "but more likely she's just exploring." Which was a problem, she didn't want the creature out where others could see her and act rashly. Really, she worried more about Malcha the Demiguise than she did herself these days (don't tell anyone else that).

"Monkeyish," Finch repeats, blankly, straightening a bit on his mop. "What's that like, then?"

Behind him, a bucket sloshes omiously.

"What?" She started, staring blankly at the man herself. Of course she'd never had to explain what a monkey looked like before and now was when she had to start. She was piecing together what to say when she noticed the bucket--

A frown appearing on her features as she glanced around. "Maybe you'll see if I can catch her. I'm assuming your bucket doesn't move 'bout on its own?" It's a hurried word as she stepped forward, aiming around the man and towards the moving object.

"Yes, actually," Newt says, straightening up as Tina says it, expression brightening. "They're gentle creatures, and they do love to play, when they have the chance. And Malcha, she's a younger Demiguise, from what I can tell."

He considers the options before them.

"We should probably start near a garden," he says. "She might be hungry, on top of feeling playful."

"Yeah, you said..." She paused, coloring slightly while her fingers dug into her pockets. Newt did not say, not the one standing before her. The Newt in a certain dream that gave her the Demiguise did-- however-- well she hadn't exactly filled Newt on any of the details of her dream. Only, and at best, she'd rescued it on a raid.

"And she likes trying to eat things she best not be eating," Tina addressed quickly, hoping Newt had missed her earlier startup. The creature was a bit like a cat, too curious about new things. Still colored she huffed out a breath before adding, "Then let's find a garden."

Luckily for Tina, preoccupied as Newt is with finding the Demiguise, he entirely misses her misstep.

"Sounds about right," Newt says with a flicker of a small, fond smile as he shifts his head to better search various angles. Again he finds himself on foot with Tina chasing after a creature that can turn itself invisible at will. It's almost poetic, when he thinks about it. If he believed more fully in the arts of Divination, he might be convinced it's a kind of sign. (But then, if he believed in those particular arts, he might also see Grimms around every corner, too.)

"There should be some around here," he says, glancing around. "I should think. Probably we should look for one with an apple tree, if possible."

Tina kept her eyes on anywhere but Newt. The worry over the demiguise almost palpable as she took a breath. Keeping Malcha-- and Newt-- safe were the only things she properly cared about in this blasted place. If anything happened to them...

"An apple tree?" She answered, brow furrowing as she stepped forward after Newt, "I imagine we're not looking for a public garden, then..."

"No, likely not," Newt agrees with a nod and a wry grin. A private garden, and probably a private garden to someone of a higher status than he really wants to actually deal with. But such is life; it's useless to worry about what he cannot change.

He starts scanning what he can see of yards behind houses, hoping silently they won't have to detour into Hightown. That would be a disaster, to say the least.

"But I don't think they have to be obscenely wealthy to grow apples," he adds. "We could simply be looking at someone with a smaller private garden, too."

"Of course," She answered with a huff. With Newt it was always coming to break some sort of law. And she imagined, even here, going into someone's yard uninvited was a big no. She didn't come into the town often, which was ironic in a way-- She'd have to follow Newt's lead.

"But why an apple tree," Tina repeated with a frown, "I don't remember giving her apples before... Unless you have?"

"Invisibly," Alistair says, but not with concern. Interest, more like. A little bit of delight.

He moves carefully around the desk, legs moving with the same slow caution he'd use if he were trying to walk around in the dark and not sure where the furniture might be—or more caution. He bangs his legs on furniture in the dark all the time. Bit mean to do it to an invisible monkey, though.

"The door did open, but later it opened again. If she was here before, she might have left."

He feels around in the empty air in front of him regardless.

"Well, Dougal likes apples," Newt explains. "Of course, he doesn't speak for all Demiguises, but I imagine it's a fairly common preference among them. Apples are easy to grab and eat, after all."

They're gradually moving into neighborhoods with significantly nicer buildings; fences and designs over the front doors. Trees and bushes of all sorts burst forth from the various yards as they pass, and Newt keeps a sharp eye out for any sign of Malcha.

"It's the best lead I have, at the moment," he adds. "Or, I suppose, the more honest answer is that it's the best lead that doesn't involve us possibly winding up in jail."

"Yes," she confirmed, voice clipped-- As if she was still ready to defend the creature in question (which she was, quite).

Her gaze on the man careful, waiting for a response that wasn't seemingly gently maneuvering around the area. Her lips pressed together as she glanced at the door with a frown. "She knows better than to go opening doors to strange places," She mumbled to herself, admittedly unsure if the demiguise did know. At least Malcha had always acted like she listened when she spoke, but she didn't speak demiguise any.

"She might still be here; I figure she's playing a game at this point."

"She seems to like anythin' she shouldn't be eating," Tina advised quietly, Newt was the expert after all. She'd only a few weeks of demiguise sitting under her belt and--well-- she can't say she's doing too good a job at it. Not even giving this mishap, she tended to give in with the creature doe-eyed her too long for her food (should Newt comment on as much she'll always kindly dismiss it).

Dark eyes trained the terrain before she snorted. "Newt," Tina chanced, "that's always a possibility with you."

Finch stares up at Tina with guileless curiousity — only to follow her glance behind him, and badly strangle a yelp.

"Careful,” He manages, far too late for any such thing, and settles for brandishing the mop, uselessly, at her back. “Could be a ghost.”

"Must be part of her sparkling personality," Newt says with a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "I can relate."

He snorts and rolls his eyes, watching Tina out of the corners of his eyes when he isn't searching for the Demiguise. Though, if she looks, there's an obvious sort of fondness in his expression.

"I...I suppose I can't argue with that," he agrees, the smile on his face following only slightly cheeky.

"Ghosts are not the scariest things I've faced," Tina answered with what could be called a puff of a laugh. Maybe it's a bit reckless assuming that the bucket sloshing around is demiguise but...

Well, she reaches for it and goes for a scolding: "Malcha. Don't reckon you want me telling Newt on you, eh?" That would usually be enough to have the creature wink into existence, but--

"Oh?" She returned in a breath, offering him a critical look, "you don't look very sparkling to me." It was clear from her expression that she was poking fun at him from how quickly it disappeared.

Her fingers going to a strand of hair before giving a small hum in thought. "Given that, perhaps I should leave you to finding her alone. Neither of us will be able to if we both get arrested."

"I sparkle on the inside," Newt quips back, the corners of his lips quirking in response. "Internal sparkling on this end. Rather useful, that."

"Well, it might help if we split up?" He nods. "Cover more ground? And then if one of us is arrested, the other can come bail them out."

"Granted, I suspect I would be arrested sooner than you," he adds.

"Oh?" She quipped, "I'm not sure how any sparkling could be useful. You'd stand out like a sore thumb."

Tina tilted her head at him giving a quick shake of her head. The idea of separating wasn't something she was keen on-- She didn't exactly want to be caught out here alone by the locals. So when he speaks once more she snorts and steps closer to him, moving to grip him by the arm as she'd once done. A silent disagreement that they were staying together.

"You've always been suspicious," Tina agreed, "even before you fell from some magical hole in the sky."

"Well, admittedly, it is difficult to blend in, even with the sparkling remaining internal," Newt replies right back, his eyes bright with teasing.

Granted, he usually stands out, as someone much more used to nature than other people. Here, on top of that, he has the gift of the shard in his hand and the fact of his own alien nature in this foreign land.

She steps forward and reaches out, grabbing his arm the same way she once did arresting him. Except back then Newt is certain he didn't feel a surge of warmth blooming from the spot in which her hand meets his arm.

"This whole experience is doing wonders for me," he agrees. "I can't wait to find out how many laws my presence here violates once we get home." If, more likely, but he keeps that thought to himself.

"You're crazy," Tina answered plainly with a roll of her eyes. Sparkling, he says. There was something that drew her to him that wasn't just suspicion, though she couldn't put her finger on it. But she wouldn't call it sparkling.

She doesn't think much of grabbing his arm, but then she was also busy telling herself that he was suspicious and that was the only reason she was drawn to him. Even if she knew better. "If you're breaking those laws than so am I," the woman countered with a sigh twisting to look around.

"Your daughter clearly likes the attention."

She means, of course, as in Malcha-- She might have been teasing him with that phrase for a few weeks now.

"True, but you've broken much less laws overall; you're an upright and respectable citizen," he points out with a wry smile. "Where I'm just barely tolerated." And he doubts the events in New York will actually change that, especially where his own involvement in concerned. But that doesn't bother him in the least, and it shows in the way he speaks of it; he cares little for what people he doesn't care about have to say.

He snorts at that.

"I think you very much mean your daughter," he teases right back, keeping an eye out for any sign of movement. "As she tends to hardly ever leave your side."

Tina snorted. "Ask Madame Piquery that and you'll get a different answer," She responded, her brow arching, "I wasn't supposed to be tracking the Second Salemers, as you know." Which meant she was performing illegally in the eyes of the president, even when she was technically being monitored.

Se rolled her eyes, coloring only slightly before finding the words she wants.

"More like my sister," the woman grumbled before adding, "she listens to you more than me. She's just nervous otherwise. Or she usually is." She gestures around to note she's nowhere around them right now.

"Maybe," Newt says. "But I also know that Madame Piquery knows that you proved yourself, in the end. She knows your heart's in the right place, at least." He was glad to talk to MACUSA's president, after the events of New York. Tina, to him, proved very much worthy of the Auror title, and he wanted to do what he could to help ensure that, given how much he'd disrupted her life.

"I've seen her watch you," Newt says. "She's very much devoted."

He scans the area around them, letting out a sigh when he finds nothing. "She is rather a clever one. Even moreso than Dougal."

"She's always known that," Tina found herself grumbling, but she can't help the way she flushes at what can only be called a compliment by Newt. Her fingers twist into her hair and she squared her shoulders. Huffing at his next statement before giving a sigh of her own.

"She just likes playing games. Something tells me she's headed back already," Tina answered. They'd probably be hearing scream or something by now if she hadn't.

"Well, now she especially knows it," he says it with a soft smile. "Tina, the way you handled yourself in that situation...you should be proud." He says it with obvious admiration in his own voice, without being quite aware of it. He does, however, quickly grow amused as she huffs, and it strikes him briefly in the back of his mind how fond he is of the way she huffs.

"We'll keep an eye out then," he says, still searching every nook and cranny he can spot. "For any screams, that is."

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sorry this is late!! c: i will let you decide if it's malcha or just an actual ghost you know

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